Sleeper hit

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A sleeper hit (often simply called a "sleeper") refers to a film, book, album, TV show, or video game that gains unexpected success or recognition. The term is most commonly used in reference to feature films.

Contents 1 Sleeper films 1.1 Examples 2 Books 2.1 Examples 3 Other media 4 See also 5 External links 6 References

Sleeper films

Some sleeper hits achieve unexpected success at the box office immediately upon their initial theatrical release, but this is not typical. Since these films are not expected to do particularly well they are often underpromoted and take time to register in the public consciousness. Typically the sleeper hit relies instead on positive word of mouth and publicity generated by good reviews or awards. Thus sleeper films often attract the most viewers in the latter part of their theatrical releases. For example, There's Something About Mary had a small release, but gained notoriety through word of mouth, and grew to top the weekend box office on its 8th week of release. Studios have become more adept at responding to sleeper success at the box office by gradually increasing the number of screens and amount of advertising devoted to a promising film over several weeks (as opposed to a traditional pre-release advertising blitz). This strategy was used to great success by the promoters of Little Miss Sunshine and Brokeback Mountain. Some sleeper hits fail completely at the box office but succeed later on video as cult films through positive word of mouth reviews communicated between fans in particular social networks or demographics. A sleeper hit does not necessarily have to make a lot of revenue; it just needs to achieve a high degree of success relative to expectations. However, the term is generally not used to refer to large budget movies, even those that defy their expectations, such as 1997's Titanic. The term is fairly subjective, so many movies are informally referred to as sleepers. Sometimes even an unreleased movie is advertised as a sleeper.

Examples

• 28 Days Later (2002)^[1]
• The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005)^[2]
• American Pie (1999)^[3]
• The Blair Witch Project (1999)^[4]
• Blood In Blood Out (1993)
• The Boondock Saints (1999)^[4]
• A Christmas Story (1983)^[5]
• Clueless (1995)
• Creepshow (1982)
• Dirty Dancing (1987)^[4]
• The Fast and the Furious (2001)
• Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)^[6]
• A Fish Called Wanda (1988)^[5]
• The Full Monty (1997)^[4]
• Garden State (2004)^[2]
• Halloween (1978)^[7]
• Saw (2004)
• The Illusionist (2006)^[4]
• Legally Blonde (2001)
• Little Miss Sunshine (2006)^[2][4]
• March of the Penguins (2005)^[8]
• The Matrix (1999)
• Mean Girls (2004)
• My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)^{[4] [9]}
• Napoleon Dynamite (2004)^[2]
• Rocky (1976)^[10]
• The Shawshank Redemption (1994)^[11]
• Stand by Me (1986)^[5]
• The Terminator (1984)
• There's Something About Mary (1998)^[5]

Books

In publishing, success is usually measured by reaching the bestseller lists. Sleeper books are usually released by an unknown (often first-time) author, are not widely publicized on release, and may not sell well at first. However, sleeper books gain recognition by word-of-mouth and this leads to sales increases. They can be promoted by independent booksellers, book clubs, or literary awards. A good example is Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier. This book, written by a first-time novelist, was released with a modest print run of 25,000. It received good reviews and was initially promoted by small booksellers and word-of-mouth. The book won the 1997 National Book Award, spent 45 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, sold over a million copies in hardback alone, and was adapted for film in 2003. An increase in sales may push the book onto the bestseller list long after its release date. For example, The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood reached the bestseller lists two years after it was initially released. This contrasts with the usual pattern of bestsellers by recognized authors, where sales are high upon release but fall off sharply after a short time. At least in the UK, Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones only became a huge bestseller at least a year after its publication, following indifferent or mixed reviews upon its first release. Word of mouth and promotion by televised reading groups facilitated such an explosion in sales and readership. The original Harry Potter books began as sleeper hits, only reaching high profile with the third in the series. The Godfather, most commonly known now for the movie of the same name, was originally a book, written by Mario Puzo with the intention of creating a bestseller. As its screenplay was being developed, the book grew rapidly in popularity, eventually topping the bestseller charts, far beyond anyone's expectations.

Examples

• The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller
• Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières
• The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield
• Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
• A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
• The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
• The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling
• Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
• The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
• The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Other media

Unexpectedly successful video games such as Katamari Damacy, Guitar Hero, Animal Crossing, Phantom Dust, The Sims, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Indigo Prophecy,Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan,Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven and the PC game Homeworld can also be described as sleeper hits. Another type of sleeper hit is an album that is released by an unknown artist with little publicity, but proceeds to gain large sales. For example, Alanis Morissette's first international album Jagged Little Pill entered the Billboard Music Charts at position 117 and reached the top 10 in its 6th week. However, it spent 69 consecutive weeks in the top 10 and has sold 30 million copies worldwide. Joss Whedon's Firefly, a television show aired in 2002 by Fox Broadcasting Company, received very little coverage at the time of its broadcast and was cancelled after only 11 episodes. However, subsequent to its cancellation, the DVD box set sold in massive numbers and remains one of the most purchased items on Amazon.com. This led to the filming and release of Serenity, a movie concluding the series, which achieved critical acclaim and modest box office success. The 1985 animated series Robotech, an edited adaptation of one popular anime series (The Super Dimension Fortress Macross) and two less popular anime, was syndicated in some areas in North America at unusually early morning hours rather than the more popular weekday afternoon or Saturday morning cartoon lineup. Like Voltron but unlike some other popular cartoons of the period in North America, it was not connected to a toy line until Matchbox licensed the property in 1986, so it received little promotion or advertising initially. While Macross and Voltron had several animated sequels since their release, Robotech would not have its first completed, animated sequel until 2006 with Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles. The NBC sitcom Seinfeld premiered in 1989 with little success. It originally didn't make it into NBC's schedule and was about to be cancelled (because of lack of success and the content of the show) but 5 more episodes for the first season were given to complete the NBC schedule. NBC would give Seinfeld three seasons from 1990-1992 and although acclaimed, didn't even make the top 30 shows. However, with positive reviews, word of mouth, and Emmy wins, Seinfeld became a part of the top 30 in its fourth season, and eventually became the #1 show. Although it had hardly any success initially, today, ten years after the finale, Seinfeld (including the early seasons) remains one of the most syndicated programs and one of the biggest DVD hits.

See also

• Sleeper for other uses of the word

External links

• Movies that took the longest time to reach #1 at the weekend box office
• The Science of the Sleeper

References